• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.49-59
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• 2011

A franchise can be said to be the main method of distribution and marketing. It appears to be the future of the retail industry and is one of the world's fastest growing businesses sectors, as many policy reports and research results have acknowledged. Korea's franchise industry began in the 1970s, spread out into many areas (including food services, retail, and the service industry), and has grown by over 10% each year ever since. The industry's influence on the national economy becomes ever greater. Although the size of the franchise industry is expected to grow as it spreads and as the government expands its support, it has not yet attracted much academic interest. Research has so far been very fragmented. The main interest has been the relationship and conflicts between the head offices and the affiliates. No study has yet occurred on whether the concepts of satisfaction and intent to conclude a contract directly affect the success or failure of the affiliates. Few studies have empirically inquired into the demographic characteristics and abilities of the affiliates that significantly affect their results. Domestic franchise industries must prepare to leap from quantitative to qualitative growth. Most important is the need for affiliate headquarters and affiliates to build confidence between them. A friendly and reliable relationship between affiliate headquarters and affiliates will eliminate distrust from the franchise and maintain a healthy franchise system. This study suggests that current and prospective heads of affiliation should concentrate not on attracting affiliates but on investment and techniques of affiliate support. They should work on the reinforcement of brand power, the appropriate affiliate business environment, systematic education/training, taking burdens off the affiliate business persons, consolidating the relationship with the affiliate business persons, marketing mix factors (e.g. products, price conditions, logistics and shipping services, promotion, supervising and supervisor, operation procedures/processes, and material evidence); these all greatly affect the success or failure of the affiliate business. Supporting the affiliates is an important factor that enhances their results and satisfaction and consequently increases the positive recommendations to others and the ratio of recurrent conclusions of contracts, which ultimately generate the growth of the franchises. In addition, it is suggested that prospective franchise founders should make every effort to choose a good head office since the characteristics of the head office greatly influence the success of the affiliates. This study is significant in that it grasps the characteristics of the head office of affiliation and of the affiliates that influence affiliate results in ways not yet academically attempted.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.237-255
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• 2010

The Korean Pharmacist Law has limited the sales of medicine to pharmacies. This has caused difficulty in purchasing medicine late at night or on holidays, which has limited the range of customers' selections and accelerated customers' discomfort, accordingly. Also, the rapid progress of aging has quickly boosted medical expenses for seniors, and has served as a factor that aggravates the budget of national medical insurance. Meanwhile, advanced countries, including the USA and Japan, have allowed the sales of general medicine, of which the safety and efficacy have been tested, in general retail stores such as convenience stores or super markets from the perspective of supporting self-medication. In particular, Japan, which has a strong tendency of pursuing safety in the world, diversified sales channels for general medicine in order to control quickly rising medical expenses. As a result, Japan has achieved the effect of easing various regulations as follows in the economic and social fields. First, the increasing distribution channels of general medicine from pharmacies to general retail stores provoked a potential demand, which also expanded related markets. Second, the competition between sales channels resulted in the reduction of the price of medicine. Third, the growing sales channels of medicine have extended the options of consumers and, subsequently, the convenience in the use of consumers has increased. Fourth, the creation of a competitive environment owing to the diversification of sales channels has accelerated an effort to enhance corporate competitiveness. Fifth, the foundation of enhancing the financial soundness of medical expenses has been prepared through the formation of a self-medication environment. In 2000, the Korean population aged 65 or over exceeded 7%, and it is anticipated to be over 14% by 2018; thus, the increase of national medical expenses will be sped up. As a way of being prepared for the era of aging, we, just as other advanced countries, need to create a self-treatment environment by diversifying the sellers of general medicine, and, thus, reduce spending on personal medical expenses, enhance the financial soundness of national medical insurance, and, further, promote the welfare of consumers.

• Journal of Mushroom
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.37-43
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• 2009

Gyeongbuk Agricultural Technology Administration carried out the nation opinion research to mushroom industry in 115 of the citizen and the provincials from 10/17/2008 to 10/18/2008. Which was for both grasping the citizen's opinion and habits and understanding farmers'. The result of the research is the following. 37.4 percent people preferred Lentimus edodes among the all respondents and 27.0 percent preferred Flammulina velutipes. As for the purchasing place, 57.4 percent buy them in large retail stores, 40.9 percent buy them in traditional markets. 67 percent of the respondents mainly use them in fall, 31.3 percent use them in winter. 88.7 percent of them mainly eat the mushrooms at home, 11.3 percent is at restaurants. 63.5 percent of them responded that the price of mushrooms was resonable, 26.1 percent answered that was expensive. In appearance, 27 percent of them chose yellow Flammulina velutipes as a good-looking mushroom, 19.1 percent chose Lentimus edodes.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.147-163
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• 2004

For the purchase of a cheaper product on the Internet, many customers have been trying to search online shopping mall sites and visit comparison-pricing shops that compare prices and other criteria of the product. Others have been participating into online auction markets or group-buying markets. However, a lot of online shopping malls, auction markets, and group-buying markets provide the same product with different prices. Since these marketplaces have different price settlement mechanism, it is very difficult for the customers to determine marketplace to purchase, considering different kinds of marketplaces at the same time. To overcome such limitations, decision rules and solution procedures for purchase decision making are necessary, which can cover multiple marketplaces simultaneously. For this purpose, purchase decision making in each market must be conducted to maximize customer's utility, and conflicts with other marketplaces must be resolved. Therefore, we have developed the rules and methods that can negotiate cooperatively the purchase decision making in several marketplaces, and designed an architecture of Intelligent Buyer Agent and a message structure to support the idea.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.51-75
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• 2007

Dongdaemun fashion market has been successfully positioned as a main hub for non-brand fashion product distribution in Korea. One of important competitive advantages of Dongdaemun market often quoted by retail researchers is an efficiently managed network system among supply chain members. This study aimed to examine the importance of buyer-supplier relationship elements and supplier properties from buyers' perspectives (small & very small-sized fashion stores in Dongdaemun market), and to identify the determinants of the relationship length between suppliers and buyers. Survey responses of 233 stores were analyzed using EQS 6.1 for Window and SPSSWIN 10.0. The findings could be summarized as follows: First, fashion stores perceived that right delivery as the most important factor, and geographically closeness, design capability, quality, and lower price followed in order. Second, the characteristics of stores such as location, wholesaling versus retailing focusing, monthly sales, and total business length all affected the perceived importance of buyer-supplier relationship. Third, design capacity, communication, power was identified as determinants of actual relationship length with a supplier, while communication and trust were found to be determinants of future expected relationship length.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.57-64
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• 2017

Recent automobile manufacturing technology has improved not only the function and performance of cars, but also the audio systems in cars so as to increase their marketability. Automobile manufacturers always have the option of simply installing an expensive acoustic system to help customers enjoy a high-level sound quality car audio system. However, this also tends to increase the MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price) of the car. Therefore, it is desirable, where possible, to enhance the sound quality of plainer, less expensive audio devices to help customers feel as if they have a high-quality and expensive audio device in their car. In order to make this happen, the manufacturer must develop an optimal interior environment and audio system at a relatively lower cost. To this end, features of the car audio system can be enhanced by analyzing audio frequency response and using performance metrics to figure out the characteristics of the human auditory system. This study analyzed the sound field of Korean Recreation Vehicles (RVs) using the Internet of Things (IoT) sensor for the measurement of car audio system. As a result, high energy of sensitive bandwidth, one of the human auditory characteristics often makes annoying sound. This study also found that increasing the frequency response flatness is required by taking human auditory field into account when designing the car audio system for the future.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.37-60
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• 2010

Department Stores have been in place as typical large-scale retailer in Korean retail market. After Asian financial crisis in 1997, the market share of major three department stores has been increased and they have had a dominant position in relationship with vendors or manufacturers. Thus, they are able to control sales commission. Sales commission is defined as things that department stores which contribute to products sales instead of manufacturers take some portion of price as their revenue. In other words, vendors or manufacturers pay some amount of money from their sales by contracted ratio to department stores. The problem is that vendors or manufacturers think that sales commission is high. However, department stores have a different opinion that sales commission is not high because they generate new value from gathering customers and doing marketing activity on behalf of vendors or manufacturers. Because department stores have operated with business model of renting sales space to vendors or manufacturers instead of buying goods directly from them, this situation has been taken place. The revenue of department stores depend on sales commission. Thus, they want to get a dominant power to control sales commission in relationship with vendors or manufacturers. So, they have tried to increase their size and brand power. The considered policies related in sales commission of department stores are as following: preventing monopoly or oligopoly of department store, being strength of monitoring for department stores' unfair trade, strict enforcement of law for large-scale retailer's unfair trade, and inducing win-win strategy doing voluntarily by department stores.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.101-108
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• 2015

Purpose - The convenience store business sector in South Korea has contributed to economic growth and job creation, and the growth potential of this market segment remains very high. In addition, service value is a more important factor than price in determining purchase intention. Research in the convenience store market is relatively very low compared to other retail sectors. In particular, research on service quality for the convenience of retailers who examine and analyze customer behavior and service quality factors used in the convenience store side of the situation is very inadequate. We have investigated the relationship of store service quality, service satisfaction, and store loyalty. In addition, we have examined the way service value moderates the relationship among these variables. Research design, data, and methodology - The questionnaire was developed using modified and supplementary questions based on the KD-SQS and RSQS models. The study suggested a theoretical model composed of 15 hypotheses on the relations between theoretic variables, and surveys conducted with consumers in discount stores in the Seoul and Gyunggi Metropolitan area in order to verify the hypotheses. We used the SPSS/PC statistical packages to analyze the results. The number of surveys used was 227. Moreover, a structural equating model was also used to analyze the reliability and validity of the composing elements and to verify the suggested hypotheses. Results - The overall results of this study are as follows. First, all service quality elements have a significant effect on service satisfaction. Second, all service quality elements have a significant effect on store loyalty. Third, service satisfaction has a significant effect on store loyalty. Finally, when the participants were divided into high and low service value the results of the multiple regression analyses showed that only the relationship between policy of service quality and satisfaction, and human interaction and policy of service quality and loyalty were significant. The implications are discussed based on the findings of the study. Conclusions - First, through direct hypotheses testing, we confirmed that the convenience service quality positively impacts the service satisfaction and loyalty of buyers. In particular, the reliability, origin benefit, and promotion were found to have more influence on satisfaction and loyalty of consumers of a convenience store. Further, for the service quality of the convenience for the consumer loyalty, greater human interaction was a high-value and statistically significantly higher than the degree of improvement in consumer loyalty. This underscores the importance of education and human services management of employees working in a convenience store. In particular, frequent changes in personnel generate results that negatively impact loyalty with customers. These results may lead to a serious problem in the economics of the store. Therefore, it should enhance the value of services through the establishment of training and compensation for employees. In addition, a certain educational level is required as well as a basis for compensation and retention.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.51-68
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• 2017

Financial technology (FinTech) is an emerging financial service sector include innovations in financial literacy and investment, retail banking, education, and crypto-currencies like bitcoin. One of the crucial branch of financial technology-third-party payment (TPP) is undergoing rapid growth, with online/mobile systems replacing offline financial systems. System quality and user attitudes are key perceptions driving third-party payment usage, the importance of these perceptions, however, may be different with countries as users' thinking varies from country to country. Thus, the purpose of this study is to elaborate how factors differ from China to Korea by drawing on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2). Additionally, this study also aims to propose a multi-attribute evaluation of the third-party online payment system based on analytic hierarchy process (AHP), fuzzy sets and technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), to examine the relative importance of the perceptions influencing new technology adoption intention. The results showed that the price value has the most significant influence on Chinese perceptions, while the perceived credibility has the most significant effect on Korean perceptions. Sub-criteria also performs different results to Chinese and Korean third-party online payment system.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.41-60
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• 2021

The purpose of this research was to determine whether multimodal cues in an online shopping environment could enhance tactile consumer mental imagery, purchase intentions, and attitudes towards an apparel product. One limitation of online retail is that consumers are unable to physically touch the items. However, as tactile information plays an important role in consumer decisions especially for apparel products, this study investigated the effects of multimodal cues on overcoming the lack of tactile stimuli. In experiment 1, to explore the product, the participants were randomly assigned to four conditions; picture only, video without sound, video with corresponding sound, and video with discordant sound; after which tactile mental imagery vividness, ease of imagination, attitude, and purchase intentions were measured. It was found that the video with discordant sound had the lowest average scores of all dependent variables. A within-participants design was used in experiment 2, in which all participants explored the same product in the four conditions in a random order. They were told that they were visiting four different brands on a price comparison web site. After the same variables as in experiment 1, including the need for touch, were measured, the repeated measures ANCOVA results revealed that compared to the other conditions, the video with the corresponding sound significantly enhanced tactile mental imagery vividness, attitude, and purchase intentions. However, the discordant condition had significantly lower attitudes and purchase intentions. The dual mediation analysis also revealed that the multimodal cue conditions significantly predicted attitudes and purchase intentions by sequentially mediating the imagery vividness and ease of imagination. In sum, vivid tactile mental imagery triggered using audio-visual stimuli could have a positive effect on consumer decision making by making it easier to imagine a situation where consumers could touch and use the product.